K'taogm-m
MIRRORS FROM M'LO
A page of purloined poetry
TO MY STUDENTS
I teach. I expect two-percent return.
Sow words; show books; plant thought; burst doors, and point:
See World; see men at work; partake!
Students, I shall be content if you learn
By tiresome emphasis from me:
"The laws of being are the laws of thought."
"Thought is conditioned by being, not being by thought."
I am indulgent and stern.
Be deaf, indifferent. Discount, forget, resist...
But never mistake
This meaning:
"Freedom is the recognition of necessity."
"By acting on nature outside himself, and changing it
Man simultaneously changes his own nature."
(Genevieve Taggard "Calling Western Union" 1936)
GOLF LINKS
The golf links lie so near the mill
That almost every day
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.
(Sarah H. Cleghorn)
PACT
It is written in the skyline of the city (you have seen it, that bold and accurate inscription), where the gray and gold and soot-black roofs project against the rising or the setting sun,
It is written in the ranges of the farthest mountains, and written by the lightning bolt,
Written, too, in the winding rivers of the prairies, and in the strangely familiar effigies of the clouds,
That there will be other days and remoter times, by far, than those, still more prodigious people and still less credible events,
When there will be a haze, as there is today, not quite blue and not quite purple, upon the river, a green mist upon the valley below, as now,
And we will build, upon that day, another hope (because those cities are young and strong),
And we will raise another dream (because those hills and fields are rich and green),
And we will fight for all of this again, and if need be again,
And on that day, and in that place, we will try again, and this time we shall win.
(Kenneth Fearing. 1940. Random House)